About things bamboo, mostly

Category Archives: Bamboo on the Internet

There is another bamboo sculpture contest being organised by the Bamboo Society of Australia. The entries will displayed and judged at the Brisbane International Garden Show in October 2016.

Three prize categories are on offer. First prize is $3,000. Entry fee for non-members is $100. Alternatively, you could take out a yearly e-membership for $20, enter the competition for $75, and have access to years of current and back-issues of the Bamboo Bulletin. The Bamboo Bulletin offers stacks of information about identifying, growing, maintaining, and using bamboo.

The Bamboo Society of Australia will have a booth at the Garden Show. This is a fine opportunity to quiz some experts about growing bamboo.

Here in the Southern Hemisphere, there is no sign of a wet season coming to break the drought in this part of Central Queensland. Perhaps that’s why I noticed this very handsome bamboo-handle umbrella but was a bit taken back by the $450 price tag. It’s just the sort of thing I’d leave behind in someones umbrella bin, I’m sure. There are, however, some much more reasonably priced ones on Amazon.

You’ve seen bamboo toothbrushes on these pages before. This one comes from Selfridges, with a marketing strategy focused on dirty weekends???? No prices because they were out of stock when I looked. Is that an indication of popularity? Of course you will find a large range, probably much cheaper, on Amazon.

Not on Amazon but interesting all the same:

This looks really different – a bamboo robot kit. Geekdad was gifted one and tells his little story about making it.

There’s nothing new, or even exciting about bamboo steamers. Ubiquitous in the East, here is a lovely little story from Taiwan about the construction of, and demand for, bamboo steamers. Of course there are plenty on Amazon, just not of the size of the ones featured in this story.

If I still ate toast, I’d love to have one these: eco+toaster. Yes, it’s a see-through toaster with a bamboo frame.

Mix all the above ingredients in a bowl. Stuff in bamboo and cook over fire, according to the images. An alternative recipe can be found here, with more details about how to put the chicken mixture in the bamboo. A quick YouTube search will give more detailed instructions.

That’s probably all from me for 2015. May all life’s best be yours in 2016.

Better late than never? Bamboo on the Internet for this month is delayed by an abundance of delightful small and large adventures – none of which have anything to do with bamboo. To start, Bamboo Prawns, but not as we know it. Should you find yourself in An Nhon Town in the central province of Binh Dinh, Vietnam, you could pick up a pair for as little as US$16.

Now that bamboo bikes are all the rage, the competition is fierce to gain an edge over all the other bikes on the market. Last month I wrote about a bamboo-flax composite bicycle. This month I’m bringing your attention to a bamboo-balsa composite frame with 3D printed parts. The bike has an inner layer of carbon fiber, followed by laminated layers of woven bamboo, a balsa core, another layer of woven bamboo, and finally a protective layer of resin.

Learn how to make fire with bamboo. The lesson starts at 4.45 minutes:

Another must-have from Japan. Chris sent me a photo of a bamboo massage tool. It’s hollow, and he assures me it’s not as uncomfortable as it looks. (Thanks, Chris.) Tattoos created with bamboo needles on the other hand, are painful. Read a first-hand account of a Westerner getting some traditional tattoos at Wat Bang Phra in Thailand. Interestingly, he mentions that invisible tattoos are becoming popular. Using sesame oil instead of ink, the tattoos still imbue the same protection as ink tattoos because the monks use the same process, design, mantra and powers as they do for ink tattoos.

This bamboo wine rack caught my attention for it’s sheer simplicity. But once you start looking at wine racks on Amazon, there are lots of different designs.

To finish up, here is another purely gratuitous image involving food. If you’re lucky enough to be dining out in Seoul, you’ll find the Spring Bamboo Delicacies special set at The Westin Chosun.

The Georgio Armani Privé Paris Haute Couture collection spring/summer 2015 features bamboo motifs. There is a short video clip here.

I haven’t had the opportunity to see ‘The Tale of The Princess Kaguya’ yet. There are lots of very good reviews (and I haven’t seen anything from Studio Ghibli I didn’t like). DVDs of the movie are available on Amazon.

Also on Amazon, these lovely looking bamboo placemats average 4 and half star reviews. Easy to clean and stain resistant, they say. What more could you want in a placemat?

Materials to compliment bamboo for bikes: A UK-based bicycle designer and manufacturer has fused flax with bamboo to produce a composite material that is as strong or stronger than carbon, aluminium or steel bike frames. And the frame weighs in at just 3.3 kg. More interesting details here.

Bamboo Qi wireless charger. It looks gorgeous. I want one. Amazon customer reviews are very favorable. You can read a Tech Aeris here, and buy one on Amazon here.

To finish off this month of Bamboo on the Internet I leave you with a lovely way to while away a half hour: The Intricate Process Of Making Arrows From Bamboo.

A light month of things bamboo on the internet that got my attention, but here goes:

Ninja firefighters? Firefighters on a stick? Only in Japan: firefighters in Tokyo displaying their prowess on top of 6 metre bamboo poles.

If you needed another reason to get a bamboo bicycle, this might be it: A bamboo bike that can recharge your mobile devices. It can run your on-board navigation system, and charge your smartphone, and one other device. Oh, they also come with a bluetooth option.

Or how about bamboo grips for cameras? They are available for a range of popular digital cameras. Why? “improved ergonomics, increased protection, and a unique look.” And yes, you can buy them Amazon.

Modern Twist: Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Art is an exhibition exploring the innovative shape bamboo art has taken since the mid-20th century. The exhibition is on in Florida until April 25 (2015), if you happen to be near by.

Taiwanese newspaper, The China Post, posted an article about bamboo artist Wang Wen-Chih and his most recent Woodford Folk Festival project. The 2013-14 installation at Woodford, Woven Sky, received such a positive response that he returned this year with some childhood friends from his hometown in Taiwan to construct Woven Cloud. He was assisted by 40 local volunteers. Cave Urban have some great images posted.

Bamboo poles are a very handy tool for practical folk needing a structure that is fast to erect. In Mumbai, India, street hawkers outside the railway station are using bamboo to circumvent restrictive by-laws. It is illegal for hawkers to sell their wares directly on the pavement as it hampers the flow of the 65,000 commuters that pass each day. Instead, bamboo structures are erected to get the wares off the pavement and facilitate a fast getaway, should one be needed.

On the other side of the world, in Gloucester, NSW, Australia, bamboo tripods are used to created instant gate blockades. The beautiful and rich agricultural lands around Gloucester are under threat from a fracking project. The tripods are fast to erect but difficult for police to remove once a protester is installed.

More practical (?) uses for bamboo: Miranda Kerr has an exfoliating face scrub made with bamboo particles. And yes, you can get it on Amazon.

Recipe for Pork and Fresh Bamboo Shoots, from the Northeast of India. Simple and wholesome – if you like your chilli hot. The raja mirchi called for in this recipe is a hybrid chilli considered one of the worlds hottest.

Also this month, and nothing to do with the internet, Life with Bamboo is on the move. I’m on the road, somewhere in Australia, in a small silver van. Bamboo farms may be visited. Bamboo events shall be attended. The next event is a Freemite Bamboo Treatment Workshop on 17 January 2014 near Byron Bay. Details and the registration form are here.

INBAR recently released another report about bamboo and climate change. The report promotes the potential of bamboo as a core resource to mitigate the effects of climate change. Drawing on a range of INBAR projects and initiatives, the report suggests three main ways bamboo can mitigate climate change: bamboo as a carbon sink; durable bamboo products; and, bamboo-based biofuel and bioenergy. The report is rather broad-based and its purpose as a policy document precludes any in-depth analysis. No mention is made of bamboo phytoliths and their role in climate change mitigation.

As you will recall from a previous post, phytoliths, or plant opal, are microscopic siliceous bodies which occur in living plants. Work is currently underway in Australia and China to investigate opportunities to sequester carbon using phytolith-occluded carbon. Carbon dating has established that plant opals and the carbon stored within them, are highly resistant to decomposition and will stay in the soil for thousands of year, remaining stable even after volcanic explosions, forest fires and earthquakes.

Not all phytoliths have the capacity to store significant amounts of carbon though. A current project at Southern Cross University is investigating the range of agricultural and grass crops, including bamboo, that do have the capacity. The potential exists for reducing carbon emissions in the order of 1.5 billion tonnes a year simply by having farmers choose high-plant opal carbon yielding cultivars of crops they already grow.

Sasa bamboo

The same holds true for bamboo. Careful selection of bamboo species can dramatically increase the sequestration of carbon within the phytoliths. Recent research in China looked into the phytolith content of the leaves of 75 species of bamboo. Sasa came out on top. But Sasa is not a major commercial species on the scale of say, Moso.

Another 2014 Chinese study looked at the potential for carbon sequestration in Moso forests. The study found that the carbon content of phytoliths is dependent upon the parent material underlying the soil in which the bamboo grows.

It’s astounding and timely research work. Solutions for climate change mitigation are right under our noses. Of course, here in Australia we have a government that insists that climate change is not real, so we don’t need to worry.